A Damn Sight Harder
by AmbyrRose
Summary: Cat's existence summed up in life, love, and red balloons. / My first Cabbie fic. Previously published as "Bobbing, Bubbling, Bouncing". Enjoy!


**. . .**

**Sun rises, night falls, sometimes the sky calls  
Is that a song there? And do I belong there?  
I've never been there, but I know the way  
And I'm Going To Go Back There Someday  
Come and go with me, it's more fun to share  
We'll both feel completely at home in midair  
Flying, not walking on featherless wings  
We can hold on to love like invisible strings...**

**~Gonzo, _The Muppet Movie_**

**. . .**

Defying gravity was a damn sight harder than it looked. Maybe that's why Cat Valentine always loved balloons.

She loved the silky, curly, shiny ribbons that trailed like strands of pearls from their stubby tails. She loved the gravity by proxy, that she was the only thing keeping these bouncy, bubbly, bobbing red orbs earthbound. She loved being their anchor, but she loved watching them fade into the big blue stretch of the sky even more.

She loved watching them fly away.

Sometimes she wished she was a balloon. Sometimes she wished she could stretch out her fingertips far enough and stand on her tiptoes high enough that she would just lift off, drifting higher and higher until she was nothing but blue, blue, blue.

Sometimes she thought she was a balloon. Sometimes she thought her friends were the only anchors that kept her from bobbing, bubbling, bouncing away until she was nothing, nothing at all.

The man in the park always smiled at her when she bought her balloons. But it wasn't just a happy smile; it said a lot more words than she could understand. _What's that supposed to mean?_ she always wanted to ask, but she was always too afraid that maybe she didn't want to know. So she bought her balloons in silence, and as she let them go one by one and laid in the grass to watch them fly away, it chased itself around her head. _What's that supposed to mean? What's that supposed to mean?_

She asked it of everybody else, just to see if they knew the answer. They never did.

So she watched her balloons wander into the sky, watched as red faded to nothing. She always bought red because red was visible the longest, because red refused to fade into the background without a fight.

She dyed her hair red so it would do the fighting for her.

People laughed at her balloons. She knew they did. She was a dreamer, not stupid. _What's that supposed to mean? What's that supposed to mean?_ They never answered, but it usually made them go away, so she kept asking it. Nobody understood. It was just one of those facts in life, like every day can't be sunny and sometimes people die, so she was okay with it. Nobody understood.

Except maybe him.

He let something else do the fighting for him too, only this something had a voice. It was loud and sometimes insulting, but he always apologized for it, so it was okay. It became something of an agreement between them, something that silently slipped into place like a ribbon through her fingertips.

She didn't get angry. He didn't laugh at her balloons.

She liked him. Maybe like that, maybe not. It should have been confusing, but it wasn't. All she knew was that when he was around, everything felt more natural, from breathing to buying balloons to lying in the grass and watching them fade away. And when he was around, people didn't look at her like that. Or maybe they did. Maybe it just didn't matter.

When she was around, he stopped fighting so hard. He started using his own voice, until the other just died away when they were together. It was easy and lighter than air and maybe, maybe, just might work.

Or not.

She didn't remember how it started and bet he didn't, either. But they were screaming, blocking out anything the other said, blocking out anything at all. Somewhere along the way her balloons popped. Maybe he popped them, maybe she did. She just remembered shreds of red rubber on the sidewalk as she ran, ran, ran all the way home.

It wouldn't work. Stupid, really, to think that it would.

She'd cried a raincloud of tears, soaking her bedspread and racking her body with sobs. For the first time, she didn't want to see the sky. Instead she lay on her bed and scowled at the ceiling, trying to convince herself that she did _not_ miss him, did _not_ care about him, _never_ wanted to see him again.

Earthbound. That's how she felt without him. Earthbound.

He never called, but that was okay, because she never wanted to see him again. She was still trying to convince herself of that when she opened the front door the next morning. A teddy bear sat on the porch, eyes as blue as the sky. The moonlight-white ribbons of four red balloons were clutched to its chest.

Then again, maybe this would work out after all.

Defying gravity is a damn sight harder than it looks. But maybe between the two of them they had a fighting chance.

**. . .**

**My first Cabbie. I don't usually ship them, but this seemed to just call to me. Thoughts? Reviews? Please!**


End file.
